


Flint and Spark

by gaisce



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Bonding Through Property Damage, Chaotic Good Toph, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Gen, Not Compliant with Avatar Comics, Post-Canon, Slow Burn (Emphasis On Burn)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29081178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaisce/pseuds/gaisce
Summary: Five years after Sozin’s Comet, a tenuous balance is on the brink of collapse. A Southern Water Tribe diplomatic envoy disappears in the middle of negotiations with the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. Each side blames the other, ready to send the nations back to war. Toph can stop the conspiracy, but with her only help being the manipulative exile, Princess Azula, her enemies may not be the biggest problem.Or, Toph and Azula go on a Life Changing Field Trip.
Relationships: Azula/Toph Beifong
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	1. Uneven Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Couple of disclaimers. This is the longest thing I've ever tried to write, and keeps getting longer and messier. Which means I cannot guarantee I will finish it but I have 50k so far and won't post cliffhangers without having the following part finished. This is also mostly a gen adventure story where they learn to trust each other, so if you're here for full fledged romance I will disappoint you. If you are here for two fight-prone dumbasses learning about their feelings and then using them to playfully antagonize the other, this is for you. Pull up a chair.
> 
> Second disclaimer about attempts or lack thereof to canon compliance. I'm using Avatar: the Last Airbender series, as well as the two Kyoshi novels, and the comics that happened mid-series. Post-canon comics I am ignoring. And this story diverges from Korra canon (although I heartily ascribe to the crack theory that Azula is Lin's dad).
> 
> ...

“We’re lost.”

“Will you stop saying that?” Toph said through gritted teeth. “It gets old fast.”

Concealed manacles made a muffled clanking noise, hiding iron and the evidence of a threat that went beyond the baiting jeers of her companion. “I will, once you admit it’s true. Following you is ridiculous, what with the obvious problem of the blind leading the shackled.”

“Prison issued. Which is exactly why they didn’t give you the directions, Little Miss Trustworthy,” she retorted as she let the wave of earth that was carrying them settle back to level ground. 

Despite traveling nonstop for the last couple of hours, all it took to rejuvenate Toph was the chance to stretch her legs. Each footstep reconnected her to the miles of earth thrumming beneath, and their tremors served as far better conversation than the snide remarks she had been forced to endure from her unwilling companion. Even though the blind earthbender did not need to look directly at the prisoner to “see” how her so-called travel partner was holding up, she was glad for the opportunity to turn and face the other girl.

Azula, exiled princess of the Fire Nation, was not someone you willingly kept near your unguarded back. Even when bound in heavy iron chains.

Toph kicked her heel against the ground and two pillars of rock rose up and fastened Azula’s feet to where she stood. “Rest stop. Hope the scenery is nice where you are because you’ll be there for a while.”

“Is this really necessary? I already told you I wasn’t going to bother escaping.” she sneered, trying to manage a way to kneel comfortably while both her ankles were encased in rock. “What’s there to escape to in this dustbowl?”

“Maybe I just think it’s what you deserve for being such a backseat bender.”

At the mention of bending Azula grew tense, preferring instead to lean over in a crouching position. Toph could hear the rustle of her long sleeves as Azula adjusted her arms so the cloth draped over the thick iron bands that covered her wrists and cut off her firebending. Toph did not turn to her movements, but her hands flexed instinctively, ready to bring up a rock shield as an automatic defense. 

“In that case fetch me some water,” Azula said, more to the ground than Toph herself.

“I’m not your weasel gopher,” Toph scoffed. “If you’re thirsty you can wait until we get to the meeting point.”

“If you won’t let me get it myself I guess that makes you the only one qualified to fetch. Besides, you won’t even tell me how far we are from this point you keep not talking about. It could be days’ worth of journeying for all you let on.”

“Trust me, if I had to ferry you longer than a day I wouldn’t have let you get off the ship without a gag.”

Azula brought her manacles down at the rock restraining her, an ugly scraping noise as she chipped off a chunk of stone around her ankles. “Oh, trusting you is the best part of this little expedition.”

“Enjoying it? That makes one of us.”

The sound of iron on stone came again as Azula brought her fists down, then once again, not letting the faint tremors finish before she struck a second blow.

Toph crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side to listen. “You’ll break your hands before you get out of there.”

“I’m not looking to break free.” She struck as she spoke. This time a piece as large as the span of a finger fell off the mount.

“No? That’s great, Princess. You’re just throwing a royal fit.”

“Don’t you have something you need to be doing? Rubbing off the top layer of filth? Resting in some mud? It’s probably very exhausting, being this much of an aggravating—”

Toph held up a hand to silence her. Surprisingly, the other girl quieted as soon as she noticed her changed expression, their fractious mood borne of boredom and forced proximity dropping when something else intruded: possible danger.

During their trip, Toph went out of her way to avoid stumbling into any unsuspecting travelers. The exiled princess was the last person she wanted for company, yet she was even less inclined to deal with the numerous complications that could arise if she had to explain why an infamous war criminal was in her custody and not in some remote Fire Nation prison, so Toph chose unmarked paths that were further inland and with rougher terrain, as far away from established villages and the trade routes as possible. But now she could feel faint vibrations against her bare feet, overwhelming the noise of weasel gophers digging their tunnels and the wind rustling across the plain.

At first she thought to ignore the sounds, believing it to be merchants who strayed from the main roads from misread maps or poorly chosen shortcuts. Yet the tremors grew more and more hurried the closer they came. Then came the second thrum, extending from all directions until they overlapped the pace of the first steady beat, almost as if they were overtaking the others. Last was the unmistakable sensation of stones being flung to the ground not the way gravity pulls a landslide but the way earthbenders pull weapons.

Toph shook her head disgustedly, knowing too well what that meant. “Great. Robbers.”

Azula quirked an eyebrow when she heard the mirth in Toph’s voice. It seemed misplaced until she saw a familiar smirk, the kind of smile she wore on her own face a very long time ago when a battle was reaching its pitch, and realized the meaning was the same. Anticipation. 

“...you’re not seriously going.”

“I’m seriously going. Messing up your schedule is just the fun part.”

Her gold eyes scanned the horizon. “They must be miles away at this rate. If you stop to help every peasant in need, I’m surprised you ever get anything done.”

“Just because you don’t care about what happens to some ‘peasants’ doesn’t mean I’m going to stand by and let them get trampled on.”

“What about your priorities? I thought we had to hurry to get to our destination on time. Where I’m from meetings usually have an expectation of punctuality.”

“Sorry, Princess, but you rank under them. I’ll make this quick though.” Toph spread her feet into a wider stance. Turning back toward Azula she made a farewell wave, simultaneously calling up another slate of rock to replace the part she had chipped away, a thicker and higher shield than before. “Stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”

“Don’t you dare leave me here!” Azula cried after her, the demands giving way to a frustrated shout. “Earthender! Did you hear me? Earthbender! — _Toph_!”

  
  


\---

  
  


It had been a while since she could remember being so dead set on picking a fight. 

While time could not mellow Toph’s rebellious spirit, it became harder without a reason to rebel. The Fire Nation stopping their century-long conquest was nice and all, but there was no need to prove herself ever since the war ended. The world acknowledged her role and afforded her the respect of her position: she was the Avatar’s earthbending master, the first to discover metalbending, the Blind Bandit, the savior of the Earth Kingdom. No one could take that from her, or dreamed of trying. The places she traveled welcomed her as a hero, bought her drinks, sang her songs, and begged for stories up until she set off again.

But with peace settling through the lands like a long forgotten comfort to those afflicted by the siege, she found there was no permanent place for her. Even Xin Fu’s Earth Rumble tournaments lost many of their fans to the surge of artisan and trade schools that grew in the wake of their reclaimed prosperity. The Earth Kingdom’s citizens were a stalwart people and had endured over a hundred years of battle, but they were tired of conflict and exhausted from war. It was not unreasonable that they would turn to other trades, at least for a little while.

But Toph would never get sick of it. She knew that as a truth set in stone.

Peace did not mean that she was never needed, only that it was barely worth flexing her muscles over. Warm up stuff, breaking up the fights and the monotony. Whatever discontents and rebellions that rose up presented less of a challenge than meeting her own expectations. And any conflict serious enough to need the Avatar’s intervention was almost always resolved before she got word of it to join the fight. Not that her friends didn’t welcome her with open arms, but when the battle was over so was her part in it. 

Diplomacy was never her strong suit. Even with her talent for uncovering lies, there was an incomprehensible nature to the business of a disagreement. Instead of perfidy there were the indirect methods, the tedium of decorum, the delays for better circumstances, and the inevitable compromises all made her feel like she was wasting time. As an earthbender, she was the type to dig in her heels and not settle for anything less than what she thought was fair. The mere thought of long winded peace talks was enough to make her restless, itching to go somewhere else.

It was why she wasn’t there when Sokka and his diplomatic envoy suddenly disappeared. And it was why she felt an overwhelming need to do whatever it took to find them. Even if it meant babysitting her majesty, the exiled princess of asylums and would-be world conquerors.

But if other people needed her, she was obligated to help. And if that motivation happened to include temporarily ditching her irritating cargo for some skull busting, who was she to turn it down? 

Toph cracked her knuckles. Oh yeah, this was going to be cathartic do-gooding.

When she arrived on the scene an ambush was already in progress. It was hard to make out from all the dust kicked up and the animals skittering in panic, but one caravan wagon was overturned by the telltale creak of a wheel spinning uselessly in the air and a conspicuously placed boulder crushing the back of it. The remaining carts were surrounded by four bandits on foot—earthbenders of course, the axles impaled by stalagmites was proof enough. At the edge of the scene, six riders on ostrich horse mounts trampled about as they closed in on their quarry. 

The four earthbenders all had a different weapon in addition to their telltale stances implicating them as the ones responsible for breaking the wagon. The heavyset one had a large ax that felt like a splitting maul from the way he struck the ground with the blunt side to bring up the rock and the sharp end of the ax to cut it down and sent pieces of debris slamming towards the cowering merchants. Two thinner earthbenders flanked him, one with a wooden staff and the other with a _qiang_ whose metal spearhead she could faintly sense as the tassel whipped in the wind. The last one had nothing obvious, but she could feel a slight weight along his arms that suggested something long and wrapped around him for later deployment.

The members of the overturned cart had already been caught up in the melee, traders lingering where they fell as if the broken heap of wood could still afford them protection. Toph could hear their heartbeats hammering faster than everyone else. It would be hard to distinguish everyone when she got in the thick of it and the adrenaline took over, with fear making all their movements hurried and reckless. Since she could not afford the time to memorize each of the people caught up in the fight, Toph’s backup strategy was simple: incapacitate everyone and let the merchants sort themselves out. It usually worked since the ones she defended were never stupid or ungrateful enough to pick a fight with her while she was saving their lives. Bar brawls were a different matter.

“Surrender peacefully and I won’t have to beat the snot out of you,” she announced as she strode into the battlefield, that way they could never say she didn’t warn them about an easy way out.

The splitting maul bender guffawed. From the faint whistling sound he made when inhaling, Toph guessed he was already missing some teeth. “Look what they sent for a cavalry!”

“Pay attention to the job,” one of the riders snapped with the authoritative baritone of a leader. He started circling away, signaling them to close ranks on her as his ostrich horse, the biggest of the lot, impatiently scratched at the ground. “We have a schedule to keep.”

“Hey, it really is the Blind Bandit!” said the one with the _qiang_ , slamming it onto the ground and spinning it to point at her for emphasis.

She grinned. “Finally! A little respect—”

“Kind of scrawny looking, you sure we’re gonna get famous for taking her down?”

“—nevermind.”

Toph huffed, blowing the bangs from her eyes, and in the time it took to exhale the ground shuddered open with a groan, as if mimicking her exasperation. Spreading her feet into a low stance, Toph pushed jagged rocks outward to trip the nearest footmen. Their laughter was replaced by the scraping of their armor and weapons as they tried to keep themselves standing on a newly uneven playing field. 

She smirked under the shadow of her hair to hear it. The grunts of surprise meant she got their attention, her cue to push the advance. 

Although it was not necessary for her to face forward to “see” what she was doing, the heavy bearing of her earthbending echoed the movements of her body’s follow through as she twisted her arms toward them to send an explosion of stalagmites barreling out at full force. The whistling one cut his breath short and brought his splitting maul to bear, slamming it down on Toph’s stone. It made her jaw twitch as the heavy reverberations of his weapon collided against hers. The tremors clouded up her perception, but she ignored them, gritting her teeth against the feedback. It was not the first strike thrown at her, and not one she would take without a return shot. Her outstretched hand twisted, yanking down the mingled earth and collapsing it with her gesture. The ground fell out from under him.

He went down just as the second bandit pole vaulted into the space between them. With an ease deceptive of his stocky build, the lacquered staff shot out and struck her knuckles. Toph managed to dodge, pulling her fist back in a block, but it still surprised her. Highway bandits were not the type for coordinated attacks, especially ones that meant training with a variety of weapon styles.

The robber did not wait for her to catch her breath. He twisted the six foot staff in his wrists and with each turn of his hand the wooden edge shot out fast as an arrow, each controlled arc aiming for Toph’s chest and arms. The first two hit, once on the collarbone and one a glancing shot where her sleeve ended. She didn’t have the time to bring up a proper rock shield so she waited for him to lunge at her before digging her heel into the ground. A channel of dirt wrapped around his back foot and sent him tumbling underneath his center of balance.

He collapsed like the earth beneath him. The grip on his staff loosened and Toph took added pleasure in smacking it away from his hands with another column of stone, letting the weapon pinwheel out into the air and land far out of his reach.

“Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I need a walking stick. But you will if you try that again,” Toph jeered. Her fist extended to the remaining bandits in a challenging taunt. “What’s the matter? Is that all you got?”

Despite the bravado, things were not going as well as she initially hoped. Pain burned under her skin, its warm flecks stinging her collarbone but still comforting in the heat of the moment and the rush of battle. The bruises would hurt more when she had time to rest, but there were other things to distract her until then. 

It had been a while since someone landed a good hit on her. And Toph hated to admit it, but the bandit slipped through her defenses because she was not prepared for this fight. Her mind was still divided in its worries over the threat she left behind and the task she had to finish. Whereas they seemed more than ready to fight her, favoring multiple attack formations and long range throwing weapons. This skirmish here was supposed to be simple, but too many things were off. And even in the open terrain of the trading route she felt as if she had accidentally stepped into a sinkhole, fighting her way uphill to end things.

One of the merchants shouted in alarm as the riders swooped in to flank their fallen conspirators, attempting to keep Toph from getting between them and their hopes of plunder. Using her injured arm she willed up an earth slope to keep the ostrich horses from rushing the wagons. Her good arm swung in an arc to shove back the remaining foot soldier just as he pivoted with his _qiang_ and spun the spearhead in her direction. She clapped her palms together and the earth responded by pinning the blade between two colliding waves of stone, almost as if she had caught the spear in her own hands.

Toph’s mind was picking through possibilities. If she could keep them separate, track the earthbenders of the group and take them out quick, this would go down smoother. Faster. And for a brief second she wondered how Azula was doing.

The Blind Bandit fought enough opponents to know the ones on foot were not her biggest concern even if they were earthbenders. Riders were two creatures melded together in her senses, unpredictable and further from the ground she used to track them. And they had the vantage point of being able to read the battle from their mounts. Once the leader saw her rush to the caravan’s defense, he kept the other five in a holding formation, making sure the merchants were cornered. Even through the harried chaos and noise distorting her senses, she knew he was waiting for a perfectly timed moment to descend on them.

The two left standing rushed together to break Toph’s wall, the one hanging back whose weapons she still wasn’t sure about, and the dimwit who thought tussling with her would be good for his reputation, missing his _qiang_ and sense of self-preservation. Their arms wound in sync, grasping at the air with gnarled hands and tearing down the heavy slates of her temporary barrier. Riders were dangerous, but the traders were the reason she was fighting. The ones left by the wagon gave her no place to move except in their defense.

Ignoring finesse, Toph ripped apart at the gravel and threw it at the two bandits. Her aim was better than a fighter’s sight when she could read the tensions of their muscles and knew just where to strike to collapse them under their own weight. The two earthbenders were caught off guard and she could hear their grunts as she pelted them into tripping over the battle scarred ground. 

Without turning Toph made sure to repeat the gesture at the two she had previously sunk into the ground and who were trying to regain their bearings. One dodged, his gauntlets knocking away the stray pieces even as he stumbled. But Toph heard a satisfying wheeze as her main target, the whistler with the splitting maul, fell backwards. A good guess was she knocked out two more teeth at least.

Toph cracked her knuckles. “How’s that for scrawny?” 

It was not just for show. Any distraction her bragging earned could put her between the wagon bound victims and their assailants. If she played it loud enough and overconfident, she could make them decide prolonging the fight would be too painful, hopefully make retreating seem like a good idea.

However, her effective blockade seemed only to make them tighten rank and coordinate. The leader raised his arm, Toph could not sense the specific gesture from the shifting of the ostrich-horse’s hindquarters and the way he balanced in the saddle. But she did not need to see it to know it meant trouble. Suddenly the other five reached for their packs. The heavy clack of weights striking against each other was followed by an odd whistling noise she could hear as they whipped the objects over their heads.

On instinct she brought her fist to her face defensively, reclaiming the stone walls of the two bandits who tore them down, one slate of bedrock rising up to defend her and the other curving over the traders like a half-formed dome. However, Toph was too busy reinforcing the traders’ wall that she did not have the attention to properly strengthen her own. 

She could hear the horrified shouts of one of the merchants, or a merchant’s son—not old enough for his voice to deepen, yell at her, “Look out!”

A part of her bristled to hear someone giving her that advice again. What part of the _Blind_ Bandit was so hard to comprehend? But even though she knew they were coming, it did not help when there was no way to completely dodge five all at once.

Toph fell to her knees as the heavy netting overwhelmed her. She managed to keep the weights from sweeping her feet by kicking slabs of stone out of the ground even as the rope pressed against her arms and restricted her earthbending. Resisting the urge to claw at the coarse restraints, she listened for the movements of another attack. If they tried to sweep under her feet she would have no trouble launching the weighted nets back at them with her bending once they got close enough.

But no further attack came.

As if on cue, the four earthbenders simultaneously launched themselves onto the backs of their companions’ ostrich-horses. And without even a parting shot or sneer the leader and his group retreated into the wilderness.

“That was weird,” she muttered to nobody in particular.

With a disgruntled flick of her wrists, each of the weights tethering the netting sailed up into the air in perfectly timed synchrony. To emphasize her disgust for their parting trick she shoved a large boulder into the air to give the netting something to wrap around before she sent it sailing off in the direction the bandits had retreated. Part of her really wanted to go after them, but she knew leaving would mean abandoning the merchants and, as much as she did not want to deal with it, keep her from going back to check on Azula.

With a frown she turned back to where the traders had huddled under the shadow of her rock wall. “They’re gone. You can come out now.”

As soon as she disposed of the dome, a few came rushing out to greet her as if she had just given them their first glimpse of daylight.

“It’s a miracle you came when you did!” cried one, presumably the head of the caravan since he was the fattest as well as the richest of the merchants if she based it on how many jingling coins he carried under his belt.

“That’s me,” Toph grinned. “Local miracle, world’s greatest earthbender and butt kicker of bandits.”

“But didn’t one of them call you the Blind Bandit…?” came the confused voice of the boy who called out to her earlier.

“Yeah, because I rob jerks of their dignity,” Toph explained, not wanting to get into the history of Earth Rumble monikers when she had things to do and crazy people to supervise. “You okay, kid?”

“Yeah, you were amazing!” he said, his young voice trembling with awe at her. And it was strange to think he was not much younger than she was when she first began her journey with Aang.

“Thanks.”

The caravan’s leader spread his hands. “How can we ever repay you? We have food to spare. Or...” he touched his money pouch reluctantly. “We don’t have much, but you’re welcome to it as thanks for saving us.”

“Nope,” Toph interrupted. “Already ate. And I don’t mean to be rude, but this was kind of a detour for me, so I have to head back…”

“Wait please! Can’t you at least help us mend our cart axle?” asked another, a younger man stepping forward on trembling knees. 

The caravan leader rounded on the other man, disapproval radiating through his stout frame. “Hok, if she’s refusing a reward, why would you demand her to do more for us?”

Hok ignored him, continuing to stare at Toph as if they were still floundering and she was the lifeline. “I know we’re already in your debt. My father is too proud to beg when you’ve already saved us once, but I’m—you see, none of us have the tools for fixing it, and it would take us hours to turn it on its right side again.”

Toph paused, listening to the tremor in his voice. He sounded spooked, even after the heartbeats of the rest of the group had settled into something that was not indicative of impending heart attacks. She raised an eyebrow and turned in his general direction, trying to decide if he was the type to get nervous about manners or it was something else.

The leader of the caravan, mistaking her silence for a standoff to negotiate, offered gratefully, “We’ll pay you for your troubles, of course. I may be a lot of things, bad at choosing caravan routes for one, but don’t let anyone tell you Honest Goong isn’t a man who repays his debts!” 

Hok tensed but said nothing, deferring to his father whose belt was heavy with coins, soon to be lighter if Toph accepted. Whatever nervousness she felt from him before had faded in the new tension that usually came from someone irritated and trying not to show it. Irritated like she would be once she got back to her job as a ferrying warden for the war criminal she left behind.

She tilted her head in consideration before nodding. “Sure. Gimme five minutes.”

After all, what was five minutes more to someone like Azula who had spent the last five years stuck in the same place?


	2. The Plot Now Overturned

Azula had been waiting far longer than Toph’s estimation. 

The disgraced princess lost count of the days a long time ago, but it started before they imprisoned her in that sunless cell and locked her away from the world. Maybe it was when Fire Lord Ozai told her to stay behind. She heard his words, knew how intractable his commands were, how painful the consequences for disobeying could be, yet part of her never stopped expecting him to change his mind. A princess used to getting her way made for a willful conceit that she had earned her place at his side. And there the thought remained, the little girl dressed up in her father’s robes and standing guard at the palace gates, waiting for his return. 

Or it could have started when she came back from the Boiling Rock. The evening she paced alone in her room, clawing and tugging at her clothes as if she could rend the disappointment from her body. All the while she grew more and more frustrated at the sluggish response of her movements, her fingers fumbling with clasps and arms getting tangled up in the robes. It was not until the armor lay in a scattered pile at her feet that she realized she was not used to doing this completely by herself, anticipating an interruption that would never come again.

The last suggestion for when she lost control of her life was somewhere in between, a harried whisper she never allowed herself to consider, to even finish thinking. It started when she fell. She was impatient and unprepared when she charged her brother on the airship, pushed too much, and the explosion of both their attacks sent them both over the edge of the war dirigible. His friends caught him immediately, while she waited for something to reach for as the nothingness tumbled past her, all her fears pressing down on her faster than gravity. It was just like those nightmares, the helpless falling sensation where you’d wake up right before hitting the ground. Only she never reached that far, and Azula wondered if it meant she was still trapped; her stricken mind still waiting to hit rock bottom.

She brought the chains down to break off another bit of stone, banishing the thought away with her hands. The first day out of her cell and it was spent either in the bowels of a ship or buried in the castoff dirt of her escort’s earthbending. Azula had no delusions that this excursion could be anything like real freedom, but with the open horizon in her sights all the cautious surveying seemed so unimportant now. Let the earthbender think she was wasting her energy on useless revolt by chipping away at her restraints. It was better than standing around and doing nothing. Better than waiting.

When Toph returned, Azula managed to strip part of the stone down to the top edge of the cuffs that bound her ankles. The exile stood up and dusted her hands, not bothering to disguise what she had been doing. In fact, she had a certain bravado to her stance, despite still being trapped in place.

“Huh,” was all Toph said. “Good thing those  _ daofei _ losers were easy or you might’ve gotten a whole ankle out.”

Azula resisted the urge to kick against the stone and demonstrate how soon she could have managed. It didn’t matter anyway as Toph merely waved her hand and suddenly there was nothing except for the ground beneath her feet.

“In that case, you should have let me come with you. Guarding a prisoner is easier to manage when you’re actually around to keep an eye out—” she said, gesturing to her gold irises in mock emphasis, “but I guess that’s too much to ask.”

“I can handle myself without worrying about  _ you _ of all people covering my back.”

“Next time I’ll just escape and say you left me off on my own,” Azula continued in a flat, clinical tone. “Who could blame me when my prison keeper abandons me without water, food, and no guarantee of return? It’s a matter of personal survival.”

“Pfft, bet you’re real good at that,” Toph snorted as a new wave of pain settled in her collarbone. A tug of raw nerves had gone from novelty to racking soreness quicker than she expected. The sensation stayed with her as she gathered up their supplies, the small collection of copper coins nestled underneath her belt. Thankfully the twinge was not bad enough for Azula to notice. “But even if you prove I can’t leave you alone—and, oh boy, you are proving it—it’d be like carrying a millstone into a fight. You’re in chains. And if you weren’t, you wouldn’t help me anyway.”

“If it helped to get this finished faster,” Azula shrugged, almost sounding offended, “I might.”

“Lucky for both of us, I don’t need it.”

Chain links scratched and grew taut as Azula twisted her wrists against them. She did not say anything, but Toph could feel the glare of her eyes burning resentment on her back. Almost as if anger might make her capable of firebending in spite of the chi-blocking restraints. 

“Hey, if you really wanted to help you’d offer to carry the packs, Princess.” Ignoring the ominous silence and the ache in her arms, Toph crouched into her earthbending stance and with a twist of her heel they were once again moving on a wave of earth. “But you already got your hands full, so why don’t you just sit back and enjoy the ride?”

They continued without exchanging another word, and under any other circumstances Toph would have enjoyed the lack of conversation. It was funny, really. She was practically begging for silence when they first started out, Azula offering nothing except for subtle questions about their destination and less than subtle taunts about everything else. But now she was completely unresponsive, where even the jab about carrying their supplies went unanswered. And that aggravating, dangerous presence became another heavy weight that dragged behind as Toph guided them over the terrain. 

Being the sole guard for the disgraced Fire Nation royal was a difficult task, even for the world’s greatest earthbender. But the real complication was that she was not meant to be their prisoner. Azula was supposed to help them as an ally under Toph’s supervision, or her protection if the need arose. 

And it surprised Toph to recognize what she resented most about her passenger was the one thing that was not actually Azula’s fault. Despite being a master firebender and one of their most zealous pursuers during the war, Azula could contribute nothing to hastening their journey while in chains. Although she was capable of keeping up, letting her have control of a fast mount or even the ability to travel under her own power would be practically inviting escape, or worse. And in spite of Azula’s sworn oath to help, she always lied, so trusting her simply wasn’t an option. 

Someone who could not pull their own weight was everything the self-sufficient earthbender hated dealing with, and yet if she were the one stuck with nothing else to do, nowhere to go on her own, and generally being treated like an ineffectual waste of space, Toph would be furious as well. She recognized that anger in the tension of Azula’s clenched fist and pursed lips. It made her wish this part would be over soon, so she would not be the only one dealing with the prisoner, burdened with carrying her and whatever unseen baggage she brought along. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“We’re here,” Toph announced once she deposited Azula back on solid ground. 

It was an obvious statement, given the fact that they had set down on the only landmark for miles around, but Toph felt the need to say something. She wanted those words to be a signal for others to appear, for anyone to greet them so they could interrupt the lingering tension. But no one came and so she was left with Azula’s wordless disdain as she surveyed their surroundings.

Their final stop turned out to be nothing more than a small farm in the shadow of the foothills. Koala sheep skittered in a panicked greeting, bleating at their arrival and kicking dust from their fence. Their pen served as a boundary for the garden that curved past the ridge with a water silo marking the edge of the farm, while the house itself was carved out of a mound that naturally began at the start of the ground swell. The front door was slanted and carved in an unusual shape to mimic how the rock formations defined its craggy walls, a perfectly inconspicuous dwelling.

Toph could look past the deceptive appearance to see the extensive tunnel network below it. The burrows were an older style of Earth Kingdom architecture, dating back hundreds of years when people sought to emulate the badger moles in as many ways as possible. Practically speaking, it also made a perfect safe house since the house blended in with the mountainside seamlessly to escape notice unless someone was looking for it, which was precisely why Toph had no trouble shoving past the door and ushering her companion inside.

“How quaint,” the exile muttered under her breath.

Toph reached out to the inside of the door frame and ran her fingers against the stone beam. The granite was sanded to a fine, even finish, obviously the work of a master craftsman. She could also feel the faint engraving of a lotus blossom in the southwest corner, so small it was about the size of a pai sho tile. It was something most people would never see in the dim light of the room, and like all symbols that marked the Order of the White Lotus, its unobtrusive nature made it all the more significant.

This was a safe house for travelers in the Earth Kingdom. A white lotus marking near the entryway announced that anyone who could find this place was already considered under their protection. While many of the society’s outposts also served as regular establishments such as taverns, merchant stores, or a variety of other trade shops, places exclusively meant for White Lotus business were rare and heavily guarded secrets within their network. 

The man whose home served as their meeting place was called Roi Se. He was a shepherd by trade, although his importance within the Order of the White Lotus was due to his mapmaking skills rather than his stock of koala sheep. Iroh once mentioned that his adventures to chart the terrain for the Earth Kingdom resistance made for interesting stories, and suggested she ask Roi Se to tell her about his adventures the next time she visited him. It was one of the few details she remembered in the blur of introductions, back when the old general and King Bumi were busy persuading her to meet as many of their comrades as possible, when it seemed a natural thing for the teacher of the first and only metalbending school to be inducted the Order of the White Lotus. 

Before Toph suspended her school, temporarily, and turned down their invitation, more definitively.

Arranged social gatherings usually left a sour impression on her, but last summer she was particularly obstinate when one of their reunions ended abruptly and with a heated argument over how unreachable she became, both physically and otherwise. Katara explained that it was because they worried about her. Worried  _ for _ her, to be precise. Toph relented enough to let them parade her about to guests and dignitaries so they could sleep better at night knowing she had a list of people whose names and places were open to her. But her pride stung at the idea that she needed to rely on barely remembered acquaintances to remind her of her place in the world.

To Toph, there was no difference between Aang wandering off to chat with a magical talking lion turtle spirit for a few hours and her stomping into the forest for training for a few weeks. While Katara and the others agreed there might not be a difference in the act itself, apparently there was a difference with her. Everyone else had settled into neat little groups. Young couples exploring their relationships, families reunited at last; all of which Toph was a part of and yet not entirely. She wandered between Aang and Katara, Sokka and Suki, Zuko and Mai, as they all carved out their places in this new world. And she could not blame them for their preoccupation since they spent most of their lives salvaging what had been ripped away. A mentor, a mother, a village, friends and loved ones, all of them—except for her—had experienced deep, personal loss because of the war. And, to them, peace meant a comfortable nearness; attachments; settling down. 

But Toph was different. Her life before was sheltered to the point of being suffocating. She wanted attachments and nearness but she also needed to wander and sometimes, no matter how much she loved her friends, that meant she needed to be away from them and on her own path. 

Roi Se was an acquaintance, and reminder that being alone did not mean isolation. He was a solitary type of person, as expected from someone who lived miles away from any village with only koala sheep to keep him company. But he was also one of the old secret keepers in the Order, and his absence in their meetings did not remove his usefulness. When she heard that his place was the rendezvous, she realized how important its secrecy should be kept. It was one of the reasons she accepted escorting Azula between the nations by herself. And it was why the prolonged quiet did nothing except magnify her wariness.

“Something’s wrong,” Toph said, pressing her hand to the door and letting it fall away at her touch.

“More than one thing,” Azula said quietly as she cast a glance into the darkened entryway.

Of course the crazy prisoner would decide to keep quiet until the worst possible moment, she thought. But even if it was a flippant remark Azula said nothing more, lingering near the narrow slit of a window and waiting. If she was contemplating running, Toph figured that keeping her near the exit would still be better than letting her wander inside the dens before she figured out what was amiss. And considering how the tunnels were designed, all twists and narrow pathways, Toph doubted the other girl was going to argue about her taking the lead. 

There were no vibrations except for the koala sheep herd outside and Azula’s faint shifting from foot to foot. Being blind, Toph did not bother with the lamps as she began exploring. With each tread of her feet she could feel the hollowed out tunnels, the dead ends and secret chambers, but no sign of a living soul within. It was only until she held still and poured all her concentration into her earthbending senses that she managed to feel a slight shift of dirt coming from an adjoining room. Briefly she wondered if this was the result of something spilling, especially if it came from something overturned if Roi Se had to leave in a hurry. A knocked over stew pot or bathwater leaking.

Then Toph froze mid-step.

Already suspecting the worst, the Fire Nation exile attempted to see what was causing her companion’s sudden halt. It had to be serious to get under the earthbender’s thick skin, and since Toph was blind it had to be something she felt. Reasoning done, Azula stared down at the ground to confirm her suspicions. 

Even from the distance and in the dim light, she found it all too easily. A pool of red was already seeping into the dirt, slick and full of dire warnings.

She briefly considered mentioning how it was fresh enough to not have yet dried, what little there was anyway. But by the expression on the blind girl’s face meant she already knew. Even as the Toph’s bare feet retreated from its edge, dragging her heels guiltily.

“Are there others?”

“Shut up,” Toph growled, and the firebender did not know if it was simply out of disgust or if she was trying to listen for any other signs of the intruders. Either way, she seemed to find it prudent to stay quiet. Toph slammed one fist against the wall, hard enough for it to shake loose some clods, her face wracked with concentration, as if trying to push her earthbending senses to their limit with the hardest strike she could manage that wouldn’t bring the house down. Then she hit the wall again, and it seemed that one had no strategic value and was simply to vent her personal feelings.

After a long silence Toph swallowed to clear her throat. Because of nausea or grief, it was hard to tell. They both were the kind to twist hard in a stomach with nowhere else to release the feeling. 

“No. There’s nobody.”

Azula did not ask for clarification on what that meant. But she took a step toward the younger girl and could see her silhouette tense up in response. “Earthbender...”

Toph grit her teeth, touching the walls as if they could explain the fight to her. Or perhaps to keep her steady. “He was alone. It was a group against one old man. He wasn’t even a fighter, and they...”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Azula finished. And the way she said it sounded more like a diagnosis than an attempt at consoling her, but Toph shook it off. She knew that, help or hinder, Azula’s words were not responsible for the heaviness settling in her stomach.

“I should have.”

“Maybe if you didn’t stop to play hero,” Azula said evenly, but whatever she meant by it was brushed away as easily as she shrugged. It was an economical movement, not careless at all. “We could’ve arrived early and we would have been just in time for them to ambush us as well. If you listened to me he might still be alive, but that would mean admitting I was right. And those peasants you saved wouldn’t have noticed your absence to blame you. Of course, it could have ended worse for them, depending on how thieves deal with merchants who fight back and make them work for their stolen goods.”

Her tone was cold and without sympathy. At first, all Toph wanted to do was break her jaw, but there was a certain chilling assurance to them. The way they cut to the marrow and shoved back the tumble of could have and should have, hating her for callousness gave Toph a focus for what to do next. She had to get Azula into the custody of the Order of the White Lotus, and she had to warn them about this attack. Whether or not the two were related—and once again Toph  _ wished _ she could accurately tell when Azula was lying—she could not ignore the fact that things were already put in motion and she was lagging behind.

Shaking her head, Toph sucked in a ragged breath and tried to get her bearings. She would catch up, but there were priorities. “We take care of him first.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“Disgusting,” Azula murmured to the dust lingering in Roi Se’s garden.

“Shut up,” said Toph in a voice as hard as steel. She had not bothered arguing with Azula, instead setting to work by opening up a grave in the adjacent garden and finding a tapestry to wrap the body. “We’re burying him.”

“It’s a disgusting custom to throw dirt over a body and simply leave it to rot...”

“We’re  _ burying him _ and that’s final.”

Azula’s feet shifted defensively, the overspill disrupting the garden’s soil and putting imperceptible pressure on the roots that only Toph could sense. But then the former princess never seemed to be mindful of what she stepped on to get where she was going. “He’s gone now, what does it matter?”

“Because he deserves this.”

“I’m sure if he were alive he’d appreciate us scattering the ashes of his murderers instead of tidying up his garden.”

Toph shoved past her. “You’re wrong. That’s not what he’d want. Now help me carry him.”

Azula paused for a moment, then half-turned and stopped again. “How well did you know this person?”

“Better than you.”

She snorted. “How unspecific.”

“We weren’t exactly pen pals, alright? But he was a good guy who was going to help  _ you _ in case you forgot why you’re out of your cage.”

“Did he know I was coming or were you the only one pleasantly surprised by the details of this mission?” Azula asked, her fingers smoothing out the creases in the tapestry but not enough to directly touch what lay beneath it. 

“He knew,” Toph said tersely. For a moment she looked as if she would say more but closed her mouth when she thought better of it. Without waiting for Azula to grab hold, or really expecting her to help, she wrapped her arms around the body’s torso and lifted it from the ground.

It was—he was heavy, Toph thought, trying to keep her balance and grip the cloth in a respectful manner. She could have simply used her earthbending to do the whole job, but felt it would be cheap. If she was unable to reach Roi Se in time to save his life, then the least she could do would be to carry him to a proper resting place with her own two hands. And she was so caught up that she had momentarily forgotten her prisoner, her reason for being here instead of anywhere else in the world, as she carried the body toward the grave. Only when she felt the weight lift and could hear the noise of cloth and chains moving after her, did she remember the other girl. She held her breath as they walked through the garden, as if that would keep Azula from speaking too, and it was the first time in their entire journey they worked together in peaceable silence.

It was only a few steps before Toph was walking on the freshly upturned soil, moving around the opening so she could place his body gently inside the grave. She knelt and flinched at the sensation that followed as Azula’s robes brushed against her wounded shoulder. It did not hurt, but it surprised her. It was strange to feel the other girl leaning over alongside her, their heads bowed in mutual concentration that would have kept them from reading each other’s expressions if Toph could not already sense it. But there was no need to see her face, given the incongruity of their actions. The former princess of the Fire Nation and her hated enemy, kneeling in the dirt with her to bury a man she had never known and Toph had known all too little.

As soon as the body was on the ground she felt Azula pull away, scrubbing at her hands. Her whole body was radiating scorn. Toph remained, her hand resting on his chest as if to protect him from her startled movement. Now that he was in place she closed her eyes and willed the earth to cover the body. When she opened them again, Toph hoped whatever spirit or afterlife that existed would accept him the way the earth did. And she hoped his spirit would forgive her easier than she could forgive herself. 

“We have to put some distance between us and this place,” Azula said right on the heels of a respectful silence, “as soon as possible.”

Toph stood, not bothering to brush off the dirt of the grave. “I know.”

“So remove my chains.”

“Excuse me?” she snorted, the sheer audacity breaking all solemnity of the moment. “For a second there I thought you were telling me the dumbest ideas you could think of.”

“They slow me down, we both know it. And if someone manages to overtake us or word gets out about his murder faster than we can travel don’t you think I’ll look a little conspicuous with these?” She held them up for inspection, not bothering to conceal the loud rattling the manacles made.

“No way.”

Azula took a step forward. “You’re going to end up risking both of our lives because you’re afraid I’ll slip out of your grasp?” 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Toph said evenly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m letting you loose.”

Suddenly, the plaintive gesture became a weapon, the chain looping around the earthbender’s arm and twisting to make the iron pull her hands tightly behind her. Azula’s face was close enough that her breath could move the loose strands of Toph’s hair. But even closer was a three inch piece of slate, sharpened like a blade and pressed along the underside of her jaw by the prisoner’s steady shackled hand.

“What does this tell you?” Azula asked slowly.

Toph didn’t dare swallow but kept her voice steady. “That you’ve got a bigger chip on shoulder than up your sleeve.”

For a tense moment nothing happened. There were a dozen ways to disarm and incapacitate the firebender before she could try to draw blood but—even though she really wanted to—Toph held herself back. If Azula was seriously attempting to kill her she would have gone for the throat already, quick and without preamble. Toph was confident enough to believe she would not have succeeded, but she might have done enough damage to make her wish she wasn’t alone with the mad princess.

“It should tell you that if I really wanted to escape into the wilderness of the Earth Kingdom I wouldn’t let you get in my way. I’d been watching...there were times where you were much more vulnerable than this when I could have struck.”

Toph clenched her teeth, thinking of Azula stooping over, shoulder to shoulder with her as they laid Roi Se’s body into the makeshift grave. And she silently had to admit, she let her guard down. “Here’s a hint. Threats aren’t the way to get people to trust you. Ever. I’m sure Mai gave you the message before.”

The point of the weapon touched Toph’s cheek briefly, hesitating. Then Azula withdrew, releasing her arm and the lingering menace. “It’s not about  _ trust _ ,” she said, pure loathing infusing the word. “I’m proving to you that you need to rely on me. That you need to believe me, otherwise we’ll both fail.”

“Believe you, got it.” Toph nodded. Then turned around and slugged Azula in the stomach, sending the prisoner reeling. “Did anyone ever tell you that you are  _ seriously _ messed up?!”

To Azula’s credit she did not collapse, but stumbled backward and came close to doubling over. She coughed through gritted teeth, trying to steady herself. “What else am I supposed to do?” Then coughed again. “Saying ‘please’ doesn’t work when you clearly have no manners.”

“I know how to act polite, but I’m not wasting it on you. Stop acting like you get a say in this. The only reason you’re still not rotting in an asylum is because Twinkletoes and Zuko thought you deserved a chance. And you’re blowing it.”

“The only reason they let me out is because I commanded the Dai Li once. I’m useful and you’re desperate!” Azula snapped venomously. “This is about what’s necessary. I know if it was about what you wanted, or my brother wanted, I would be back there and you’d never let me out. But if we stay here and argue we’ll be caught, and I refuse to trade a Fire Nation cell for an Earth Kingdom prison.”

It was hard to admit that part of that rant made sense in a sick and twisted way. Shaking her head in disbelief, she reached for Azula’s hands, easily crushing the slate shard into dust. Then with a flick of her fingers she wrenched the chain from her shackles, the links clattering into her waiting hand until all that was left was Azula’s iron gauntlets.

“You might have a point, even if you don’t know how to make one without a sharpened edge,” Toph said after a moment, crushing the metal and warping it until she could twine it around her own wrist as a plain-looking accent to her gauntlet. “It’s not about what I want, but it’s not what you want either. So stop standing around and follow me.”

“And the rest?” Azula prompted.

“Don’t push it, Princess,” she grunted, kicking off the chain that bound Azula’s ankles with her bare foot. That one she left in the dirt, as if waiting for the firebender to pick it up if she dared. “You don’t need your firebending to move.”

The girl inhaled as if to say more, or recuperate from Toph’s punch, but held off. “Fine. Let’s get out of here. This place is depressing.”

  
  
  


Despite her insistence to leave as soon as possible, Azula took the opportunity to ransack supplies from Roi Se’s home. He had no need of them now, she explained as Toph waited with crossed arms and a disapproving scowl. The earthbender did not have to scurry about in order to make use of the time left to them. With only a few careful gestures she buried any signs of his association with the secret society, crushing potential evidence into dust. The one she took special care to remove was the white lotus symbol on the door frame, pulling the carving in the size of a pai sho tile from its mooring. 

“Aren’t you taking anything else?” Azula asked, glancing suspiciously at the tile. 

Toph rubbed her thumb over the carving and then tucked it in her belt. “I travel light. And you better remember that, because you’re going to be the one carrying the extra weight.” 

But the question prompted her mind to turn over the scene once again. Whoever did this, it was quick and dirty, overwhelming an old man with brute force and then leaving just as abruptly as they broke in. Opportunistic  _ daofei _ or other roaming bandits would have taken more time to ransack the place, searching for secret compartments hidden within the stone of the walls or rifled through his supplies. She could sense the shoddy attempts to cover their attacks with packed layers over the marks of blades and earthbending, the way a child would shove a mess under the nearest covering to escape blame. It was almost too simplistic, too slapdash, which she initially attributed to their hurry to escape before she was due to arrive, but now realized it could also be a deceptive way of covering their tracks.

She turned on her heel, walking headlong into another of the tunnels. Roi Sei was obviously the target since they didn’t devote their search for anything else important, overlooking conspicuous evidence like the White Lotus tile. But maybe it’s because they didn’t know what to look for, only that they had to destroy anything  _ she _ might have found useful. And their concerns of what she may have uncovered be her way of discovering what the perpetrators were worried about.

Without Roi Sei to answer her, there was no guidance as to why he was her first stop, what he was going to do with Azula once she arrived, or what poppy-laced tea the Order of the White Lotus was drinking when they thought it was a good idea to start a save the world operation in the hands of a solitary old mapmaker, a mad exile, and Toph as the one to pull it all together. 

Except, maybe it wasn’t a bad start. Maps. He was a mapmaker for the entire Earth Kingdom, even the corners of the Si Wong desert and Ba Sing Se.

She tilted her head to listen for Azula’s footfalls, the newly unchained firebender not following her deeper into the rooms, but not making a run for it either. Toph wasn’t sure if she wanted Azula to be here or not. She needed the firebender’s eyes but unfortunately those came with the rest of her. Instead, Toph reached out her hand, hoping to find the worktable of Roi Sei’s map room. Her fingertips touched bare stone, same as the cabinets that lined the walls, also empty of any scrolls or stray scraps of paper. The intruders had been here, and much more careful hiding their tracks than they were in the front room.

“I’m sorry,” Toph said to the man’s stolen work, which was both more grief stricken and less painful than apologizing to the body she just buried. 

She returned to Azula’s pacing, the unnecessary movement seemingly out of place for her. “Is there anything here that looks wrong?” she asked.

“Besides the obvious?” Azula replied acerbically. 

“Yeah, because it’s not obvious. They stole all of his maps. Ransacked his workroom. It only looks like this because they...” she trailed off, trying to keep her voice even. 

“They saw him as a resource who had outlived his usefulness,” Azula finished, yet turning to survey the room with renewed interest. “Why are you asking me? You’re the one who can stomp your foot and tell where everything is in this hovel.”

“Because I didn’t sense any secret compartments hidden in the walls, and he wasn’t a bender anyway.”

“It would be foolish to hide anything in the element most likely to be wielded by your enemies,” Azula said, moving to trace her fingers along the wooden tabletops and cabinets of his room.

Toph wanted to point out firebenders still had the hundred year reputation of being the primary oppressor for anyone in the Earth Kingdom, but was distracted by something Azula said. Roi Sei of the White Lotus was clever enough to not leave anything obvious for earthbending thieves to discover, but he also may have been clever enough to leave something just for her: the only metalbender in existence. 

She took a step, pivoting slowly in a quarter turn to send vibrations throughout the earth and waited for a response. Immediately, the echo of what she was looking for reverberated back to her, packed earth, slate, disturbed soil, and the sparse instances of iron hidden amongst his rooms like hinges and an overturned tea kettle. There was nothing obvious, like a locked box or reinforced wall, but paper was thin and there was a metal sheet underneath the drafting table back in his workroom.

In a few easy strides Toph was there, wrenching the metal apart and feeling her breath catch as she felt a soft flutter of parchment fall over her toes. This time she wasn’t alone for long, Azula’s footsteps trailing and voice calling out for her. Toph had a split second to decide if she should share her discovery, because Azula could see what was on it, could read what Roi Sei must have thought important to hide just in case the worst came to his doorstep. It could be the answer for what steps they were supposed to take, what plans they were supposed to prepare, even explain why he was killed.

The firebender stood in the doorway. “What did you find?” 

She rubbed her cheek, the place where Azula nearly pricked her, and shoved the scroll into her tunic. “Not sure. But I know there’s nothing left here to search for, so let’s go.”

  
  


\---

  
  


When they finally left Roi Se’s home, twilight was settling in. The darkness did not bother Toph; it was the same as daylight to her. And the cold did not bother Azula because she could raise her body heat even if the manacles prevented her from proper firebending. Nevertheless, they did not travel for very long and when they made camp both were eager to spend the night unconscious to its splendor.

Toph extended her arms out at adjoining points and two solid rock slabs rose up for her tent. She turned to where Azula was sulking by their supply sacks and called up another tent right beside her. To Toph’s disappointment, Azula was either too accustomed to sudden acts of earthbending or too exhausted to be startled.

“Sleep time, Princess Psycho,” the earthbender called and jutted a thumb toward the tent entrance. “Go get some beauty rest or whatever it is you do.”

“I’m sleeping outside,” Azula responded in a tired voice.

Toph thought it would have been nice if she could at least go to bed without this problem, dumping Azula in a rock cage with enough air holes to breathe until she could worry about her in the morning. But of course even the most minor things would have to cause her companion to start another argument.

“No, I think you’re supposed to say ‘Thank you, Toph. Because all I have is a bedroll I stole, so you giving me shelter even after I’ve been an annoying pain in your butt the whole time you’ve known me is real generous of you.’”

“If you want to tie me to a stake to make you feel more secure about me running away then do it, but I’ve been in an underground prison for five years. I’m not going to willingly crawl back into another just because you’re promising to let me out in the morning.”

Toph thought about repeating her threat. How the slightest movement would alert her to an escape and she would drag her back in reinforced and very uncomfortable ill-fitted chains if the princess tried anything. But something in Azula’s mannerisms kept her from pushing.

_ “It’s a disgusting custom to throw dirt over a body and simply leave it to rot...” _

Toph sighed, undoing the structure with a hand gesture like an exhausted goodnight wave, then headed to the shelter of her tent. No, she would not let her guard down again, but she would not needlessly antagonize the former princess of the Fire Nation either. Instead the blind girl closed her eyes, opting for sleep, because this day was exhausting, and the next one held no promise to be any better. 

“Suit yourself, Princess.”


	3. First Do No Harm

Toph woke up to the sound of Azula’s slow, methodical movements. The earthbender’s enhanced senses alerted her the instant the other girl got out of her bedroll; but her other senses, the ones that warned of sleep deprivation and sore limbs, told her it was too early to follow suit. From the temperature of the ground, she knew it had to be just before dawn, so unless Azula was immediately barreling down on her and looking for a fight, Toph wasn’t going to get up. Unfortunately, the steps continued to drag new noises into their campsite, the clatter of their supply sack being rifled through, the scraping of brush being swept away, and none of them hinting at being finished any time soon. 

“Go back to bed,” Toph grumbled from beneath the darkness of her stone tent, mentally cursing all firebenders and their weird dedication for fixing their waking hours to a big ball of light hovering in the sky.

“So you are awake,” Azula’s voice came from their camp’s newly christened center. She had stopped moving around and seemed to be in a horse stance, subtly shifting her weight from one foot to another, which made Toph assume she was going through bending forms.

“Only because somebody keeps interrupting my sleep by banging around like a den of badger moles.”

The posture shifted again and Toph could hear the silence of Azula’s breathing dropping down to imperceptible levels. It was a familiar morning ritual back when she was travelling with Aang, when he would get up early to meditate as part of his Air Nomad heritage, focusing on detaching himself from the turmoil so he could greet the day with his usual brand of Twinkletoes optimism. But the very idea of destructive and vicious Azula acting in any way like Aang, even superficially, seemed unbelievable.

“What are you doing?” Toph called out. 

“I can hunt for breakfast,” the older girl offered in a tone that lacked condescension or backhanded sarcasm, which was immediately suspicious. Just as suspicious as not directly answering her question. “It would be stupid to use up all the dry rations at once.”

“Uh-huh. You’re not going to ‘accidentally’ get lost in the woods while you’re gone.”

“Not with the ‘world’s greatest earthbender’ to look out for me,” Azula said, mimicking the sarcasm in Toph’s voice. “I feel completely safe knowing the minute I step in a direction you don’t like you’ll come and dump me in a hole up to my knees.”

“Elbows, Princess. I remember what you can do when your hands are free,” Toph said with a grunt as she sat up, twisting her neck from shoulder to shoulder until she heard the satisfying pop of her joints. The morning stretches made a good distraction while she wordlessly surveyed any changes Azula made to their campsite and the surrounding area. They were on the last stretch of the chaparral land that grew around the outskirts of the southwestern Earth Kingdom. Getting to their next stop, Omashu, meant going through a lot of level barren ground and dry forests that would take at least two days to cross before they reached the Kolau mountain range. Two days that could seem like forever given the present conditions and company. 

“If you’ve declined my generous offer, I assume it means we’re starving together or hunting in tandem.”

Toph groaned, her stomach growling in time with her protest. If she was going to be on guard the whole time she might as well eat a full breakfast beforehand. “You got a point about the food, but I don’t think you have to worry about the big, scary berry bushes attacking us.”

“Do you have to share the Avatar’s silly notion of not eating animals as well?” Azula asked, slowly extending her arm into another stance as if pushing against an invisible force with her palm, holding the form as if it was a simple matter of patience that could reignite her firebending. 

“Who says I do? It’s practical. Berries and nuts are easier to forage here than going for something that makes you chase after it. And I don’t know about you, but all that effort will eat into our traveling time before we even get a bite.”

Azula rolled her eyes at the punny humor and withdrew her hands into her sleeves. “That’s because you have to work to get your fires started.”

“And I know rabbiroos are hard to skin. We’ll gather what we can and move on,” Toph said with the firmness of someone who was not going to argue further, but it didn’t stop her from pushing back. 

And she wanted to push, with words at least, since she was technically supposed to avoid punching a prisoner, but also because this argument felt like it was about more than just food. Toph suspected that Azula was testing her about the rations to get a bearing on how far they needed to travel to their next destination. Based on the ration size Toph allowed them to eat, Azula could suspect they were close, and she could become more unpredictable with the chance of reaching their destination. Or she could be waiting for some kind of distraction like, say, near starvation and use that to exploit a moment of weakness, like that time before in the garden. 

Toph ground her teeth at the memory and the self-recriminations of letting her defenses down when she was practically rubbing elbows with a sworn enemy. No matter what happened, she wouldn’t make that mistake of letting her emotions distract her again. Whatever Azula said would be designed to provoke her into giving an unguarded response, so she would have to be constantly alert to keep from giving away any pertinent information. Which meant going off to forage for resupplies would better to keep her from guessing how far they’d have to travel. 

Which meant getting up.

She rubbed her temples in frustration. “Ugh, it’s way too early for this.”

“Dawn is the perfect time,” Azula said, setting her hands to her stomach and then extending them as she exhaled slowly. After a second, she stood up straight and turned to her companion, signaling the end of her breathing exercises. “After all, the early bird catches their prey unawares and lays waste to their sleeping enemies.”

Not for the first time, Toph wondered how Zuko could be related to her; moreover, how he _survived_ being related to her. Azula might be a morning person, but it didn’t soften her natural “charming” personality. 

“Yeah, okay. We’ll go find something and you can sneak up on every enemy shrub you want.”

  
  


\---

  
  


The galvanizing irritation that had gotten Toph out of her tent had long since worn off, and she found herself trudging along in a sleep-deprived daze, reminiscing about better times as they searched the forest for anything edible. Back when she was journeying with Aang and the others, Toph did the work of finding roots and tubers but left the rest of the food preparation to her friends. Aang’s monkish upbringing and his travels through the other nations meant he could identify which plants were edible. Katara’s waterbending was as much an advantage to cleaning and cooking as Toph’s earthbending was to foraging. Sokka’s hunting trips were inconsistently successful, but he was always the first to try something new and had a surprisingly good palette for fixing dishes that tasted off. And when others joined them, like Suki and Zuko, they each found ways to contribute their talents into the daily tasks to lessen the burden and shared in the bounty together when they ate. 

The meals in her solitary travels had never tasted as good.

She sighed, attention focusing back on her companion. Azula could make a fire, but the idea of removing the chi blocking pressure points hidden within her manacles seemed recklessly stupid for that minor convenience. Especially since the two hours of searching had only resulted in a handful of mushrooms and a collection of berries that didn’t fill half of the sack she carried. Oh, and the part where Azula was more likely to flame broil Toph than cook breakfast.

For all her talk of hunting, the firebender did not use it as a pretense to ask for Toph to remove her restraints or request any weapons, seemingly content to move about without chains. But she seemed equally uninterested in foraging. Her meager contributions were whatever berries happened to be in her way, dropping them near Toph’s sack without concern if they made it in or not. The one instance of genuine effort seemed to be when she went to break a bunch of prickle plantains from a low hanging branch, unripened and likely sour. Toph was convinced she bothered to pick them just for the excuse to throw them and see how the blind girl’s reaction time fared to an object being lobbed at her face. She caught it, although not with the preternatural grace she had when it was rocks being thrown at her, and made sure to return salvo by chucking semi-rotten berries at the princess’s feet. Admittedly, that may have been another reason why their food stores were only half full, but the trip hadn’t descended into a fruit flinging skirmish, because Azula either didn’t notice or chose not to acknowledge the petty retaliation.

In fact, Azula barely talked the whole time they were foraging. Even her footsteps were quieter, a difference that suggested she was intentionally stomping around back at their campsite to wake Toph up, or this was a demonstration of her hunting abilities, stalking her prey with a patience that would outlast even the most guarded quarry. Neither reason made Toph feel better, but it was interesting to observe the firebender’s stealthy movements when she was not the target of them. It was the only sign that Azula might be taking the hunting thing seriously, as she ignored any startled birds and seemed unconcerned with the lack of animals crossing their path.

Toph had stopped to plow the ground with her heel, upending another supply of mushrooms and moss into her foraging sack, when she felt the other girl suddenly stop. Azula had spent most of her time subtly pushing ahead by threading through the spaces left between branches and clambering over hills easy enough to go around, but carefully staying within their unspoken boundaries. Now she was standing on the edge of a copse where the trees and bushes grew thick together, her body turned to face the narrow pathway and coiled in readiness to meet whatever lay beyond it.

In spite of everything, Toph stopped as well. She couldn’t sense anything from the ground, but whatever it was seemed to catch the firebender off guard, and drawing attention to them by asking her why would be a stupid move. Azula seemed too genuinely taken aback for it to be a trick, but as the moment dragged on and she felt the way the firebender tensed, her feet imperceptibly shifting in preparation for a lunge, Toph realized she had misjudged. The danger was coming from manacled firebender all along, and nowhere else. 

Her mouth opened to call her back, Toph breathing in just as the other girl exhaled. Then Azula dove through the thicket.

“Hey!” Toph hissed, swinging the sack over her shoulder as she gave chase.

A one second headstart wasn’t much, but Azula had picked the best moment to exploit her advantage. Toph was restricted by how dense the foliage was as she followed after her in the circuitous, narrow trail. And while she could earthbend all of it out of her way, wrecking dozens of trees and overturning boulders in the process, she decided to keep her destructive tendencies to a minimum. Then she could expound it all on Azula once she caught her. Although, the more trouble the forest gave her, the more her restraint eroded as she considered just bringing up an earth barricade and slamming it through like a battering ram until it hit the escaping exile. 

Azula nimbly darted through branches that snagged against her sleeves but did nothing to slow her down as she deflected them with the grace of a trained hand-to-hand fighter. At her heels, Toph felt them whip back at her bare forearms and shins, and she had to keep her arms up to block the twigs that were easy enough to break when walking but could bite and sting when recoiling back into her face. 

After a clump of leaves smacked Toph upside the head her patience ran out. She raised one knee up and the level ground ahead of them turned into a steep incline. Undaunted, Azula kicked against the rock and sprang off its surface like they were goat dogs playing a game, deflecting to another open exit and turning her head to look back at Toph as if taunting her to follow. But the forest was working against her now, with branches giving way to close seeded trees and a flat terrain now filled with roots and rocks. Toph seized her chance, jumping on the mossy cover of the roots and using their network to earthbend a small amount of soil beneath them, tripping the firebender who was expecting sinkholes and rock slates, but not a simple tree root to catch her ankle. 

All her graceful pursuit ruined, Azula rolled from her fall into a crouch, wheezing indignantly. “What did you do that for?”

“Uh, you bolted?” Toph said, taking a triumphant step toward her quarry only to feel a faint, prickling sensation on the soles of her feet. Not the kind a firebender was capable of, but something warm trying to stab past her defenses of dirt and calluses.

Azula managed to right herself into a proper sitting position, shrugging as if she always intended to be sitting on the ground. “I was chasing a squirrel frog.”

“There wasn’t a squirrel frog.”

“It certainly looked like one to me,” Azula retorted, and if it were anyone else Toph might believe them, but Azula was an immaculate liar and could say she was running after a winged platypus bear with the same assurances. “It was gliding on the branches.”

The prickling became more insistent, and Toph had to resist the urge to scratch between her toes. “Why don’t you say it was using an airbending glider while you’re at it. We both know you’re lying, just tell me why you were running.”

“I wasn’t running,” she insisted, finally starting to get to her feet. “I already told you, I’m not interested in escape. I was engaging in a little exercise.”

“You know, I could put your chains back on and let you run around the camp on a leash.”

“Not that kind of exercise,” Azula said, an edge of satisfaction creeping into her voice. “How are your feet, by the way?”

“That’s...” Toph stopped, her mind replaying the chase. She had stepped exactly where Azula stepped, foolishly thinking she was on guard. But the other girl had boots on and Toph had her bare feet. The itching became more persistent now that she had time to devote her attention to it. Why would Azula need to bother setting traps when she could simply use the landscape’s poisonous bounty and Toph’s own headstrong eagerness to her advantage? She was so fixated on catching up to her that she didn’t even notice the warning stings of pain until now.

Azula dusted the dirt from her tunic’s sleeves, shaking her legs a little so the metal cuffs of her ankles rustled. “Well, if this little detour is finished—”

“Oh we are _just_ getting started, Princess Psycho,” Toph growled, reaching out to grab Azula by the collar. She could have easily used her earthbending to drag her forward, but this had become personal, and Toph wanted to personally introduce Azula’s face to her foot and see if she could transfer some of the poison through secondary contact.

Azula shrugged against Toph’s knuckles. “Honestly, I thought there was a squirrel frog. I was so focused on watching it from the trees, I must have missed the fire ivy on the ground.” 

“I oughtta—”

“What?” interrupted Azula, and there was a truculent challenge in her voice. “Strike me? Bury me into the ground? Make me regret I was ever born?”

Toph, who was tempted to do any and all of those things, found herself hesitating. Azula seemed to be baiting her into a fight, but wasn’t displaying any of the posturing that would come with defending herself. If anything, she was making it harder to put herself on guard, leaving her center open and leaning forward too much, her jaw practically touching Toph’s fist in anticipation. First, running away, and now recklessly daring her to attack?

It took all of her restraint, but the Blind Bandit forced her voice to become even. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Don’t know why you want me to throw the first punch. It’s not like you’re too good to take cheap shots at people who aren’t attacking you.”

“It’s not like you had to chase after me.”

“Of course I did! Keeping you out of trouble is the reason I’m here!” Toph snarled, then stopped. The fire ivy poison must be interfering with her senses, or Toph would have realized there was someone walking around sooner than when they were a stone’s throw away from their quarrel, and possibly within earshot.

“What is it?” Azula asked, noticing Toph’s sudden shift in attention. It was infuriating how easily she could go from arguing to this, like they were suddenly allies when not two seconds before she was goading her into a fistfight.

Toph cursed under her breath, trying to sense more from the person’s movements. The third person was alone, and not walking with a particular direction in mind, although that changed with the reverberations as footsteps came closer. It was hard to tell exactly with her feet buzzing in irritation, but their intruder was no more than a half-minute’s walk from them.

“There’s someone else here.”

With a flick of her fingers she brought up a column of earth to sit on, then repeated the gesture under Azula, knocking the legs out from under the exiled princess and making her sit on the stone seat prepared for her with an awkward thud. Then Toph chucked their supply bag at her to further unbalance her.

“Act like everything’s normal,” Toph warned, swinging one leg over her knee. “You so much as breathe wrong in front of them and I’ll give you that fight you were looking for.” There was iron in her voice, something stronger than her casual warnings, made more serious by how nonchalant she was currently behaving. 

Azula straightened her posture in response, adjusting the pack as if it were a trophy to be kept in her care and not a projectile thrown at her a moment before. “Fine. I’ll be the most normal, boring Earth Kingdom peasant you can imagine.”

“Hello? Is everything alright?” came a voice from beyond the thicket.

Toph rounded on Azula, her sightless eyes still glaring a dire warning into the firebender. as she shouted in the friendliest voice she could muster, “Yep, everything’s fine!”

“Are you _trying_ to sound more suspicious?” Azula asked in a low whisper.

“No!” Toph snarled in a hushed tone. “I’m trying to sound like I don’t want to throttle you!”

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to deter the person whose voice was only getting closer and more curious. “Are you sure? I heard shouting.”

Azula stared Toph in the face for a moment, silently trying to convey something before she turned to call out in a friendly voice, “Really, it was a minor accident. The only casualty was my friend’s dignity.”

A young woman, likely not much older than they were, clambered over the rocks. She was sure footed and used the branches to keep her balance as she descended, giving the appearance that she was familiar with these woods. Once on level ground, she wiped her hands on the side of her _chima_ and bowed in introduction. “What happened? I’m a healer. Maybe I can help?”

“We were foraging when I stumbled over these tree roots,” Azula began explaining before Toph could say anything, “and she ran to help me up. It all happened so fast, I wasn’t able to warn her about the fire ivy growing over the ground.”

Toph grit her teeth. “Yeah, normally you’re so good at telling me to watch out.”

“Oh dear, and you’re an earthbender?” the woman asked, glancing at Toph’s uncovered feet.

Realizing there was no point in hiding it, Toph said, “I am. But that’s why it’s not a big deal. I’m thick skinned and I can earthbend my way around no problem.” 

“I’m such a clumsy oaf. This is all my fault,” Azula said to Toph, her cloyingly concern turning the truest statement she ever spoke to her into an enraging falsehood.

“What’s important is you weren’t hurt too,” Toph said, matching her tone. “It would be really terrible if that happened.”

Azula gave a curt nod, as if to acknowledge what Toph was really conveying, before she turned her attention to the newcomer. “Oh, how rude of me to not introduce myself. I’ve been so preoccupied with my friend’s injury that I forgot my manners. I’m Mei Li,” Azula said, turning her nod into a slight bow. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, and as if she were introducing herself to the Earth Kingdom woman and not alerting Toph to her alias.

“I’m Song,” the healer offered in turn before returning her attention to Toph’s injury. “And I’m sure you’re very capable, but fire ivy inflammation can create other infections. I would feel much better if you came back to the village so I could treat you. We have a clinic, it’s not far.”

“Look, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to be a burden.”

Toph didn’t want to admit it, but she was beginning to feel the effects of the fire ivy. The burning sensation across the soles of her feet was limiting her connection to the earth, which meant her balance and spatial perception were getting harder to judge with each passing second. If she was alone—and she fought against the sensation her mind supplied her with, stumbling around injured in the middle of nowhere—she would manage this passing injury. But with Azula and this unaware Earth Kingdom girl, the danger increased the more vulnerable she became.

Song edged forward, tentatively touching Toph’s shoulder with her hand. “Please…” Toph blinked, suddenly realizing that she was not pleading with her directly but with Azula. She was begging _Azula_ for help. “Your friend might get worse if we don’t treat her soon.”

“And what kind of friend would I be to let her suffer this way?” Azula said in a voice that was laced with sarcasm, but returned to some semblance of concern when she addressed Toph directly. “You’re not in a state to push yourself. I know how much you hate to be a burden, but perhaps we should take advantage of this young woman’s kindness...”

Toph wanted to point out how much Azula loved taking advantage, the unstated sneering that must be hiding behind those words because she crafted them so carefully, but it was getting harder to keep herself steady. And what about this meddling healer? How could she get them away without arousing her suspicions, someone whose only fault was being kind to strange travelers? Toph could have ground slate into dust between her teeth when she muttered, “...alright, fine.”

“Then it’s settled,” Azula said, a pleased hum in her voice. So convincing, Toph thought, she almost sounded like she genuinely cared.

With no other choice, Toph shuffled forward to follow, but Song held her back, warning, “You shouldn’t walk while your feet are like that.”

Toph shrugged and turned to Azula. “I guess you’ll have to carry me. You know, like you did back when we were kids.”

The pause was only the space of a breath. A breath Azula let out with deliberate slowness. “…how could I forget?” 

With their complicit lie agreed upon, Azula bent one knee and pressed her fist to the ground, the way soldiers swore fealty instead of the way friends offered help. She knelt awkwardly, as if her body rejected the very notion of such acquiescence, before allowing the earthbender to clamber up on her back. 

Toph resisted the urge to give her a swift kick before she settled against Azula’s waist, mostly because she decided that it would hurt her feet more than it would hurt Azula’s sides, which felt gaunt and wiry beneath the heavy Earth Kingdom robes. The other reason being that, for once, the princess seemed content to play at the ruse of a concerned childhood friend, which meant their new travel companion was safe from the truth of Azula’s true identity. Even if it meant Toph had to spend the trip cozying up to her.

“Thanks, buddy,” Toph cooed in Azula’s ear, sickly sweet. It seemed easier to remind Azula of their predicament by wrapping her arms around her neck and pressing close, almost a role reversal from yesterday in the garden. This way Song would see the close affection of her new companions, and Toph could make sure to crush Azula’s windpipe if she dared spoil the illusion.

“Don’t,” Azula cleared her throat with a growl, “mention it.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“This may sting a bit,” warned the healer as she uncapped a small bottle and poured it against the bandages. She had introduced herself as Song, and the name was fitting as she hummed soothingly under her breath, not intended to be heard, but Toph appreciated the small thrum of her vibration as she pressed the tincture against the sole of her foot.

The earthbender didn’t flinch, but scrunched up her nose at the strong smell. “What’s in this?”

Lingering off to the side, Azula picked up one of the glass jars to examine the contents. “Vinegar, at least. I can smell it from here.” 

Song reached out to lightly bat Azula’s hand away before turning her attention back to her patient. Toph wasn’t sure to laugh or brace herself to the former princess’s reaction as Azula stood stock still, her inaction suggesting she had not yet comprehended that she was just treated like a misbehaving cat.

“That and some other ingredients. Aloe from plants to soothe the irritation, bacui berries are to ease the inflammation, the vinegar is to clean out the irritants.”

“Does it work on different kinds of irritants?” Toph looked over Song’s shoulder to give Azula a meaningful, mocking stare, and was grateful to note that she didn’t seem ready to retaliate for being scolded. But still refused to move away from Song’s medical supplies, albeit with her hands clasped behind her back. 

“Oh, lots of things, like stains…” Song started to say then trailed off as she began the final wrapping of bandages and her focus went to making sure they were just tight enough to hold but not to chafe. “Is that too tight?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Toph replied, flexing her toes. And she found she meant it, more than just the usual brush off whenever anyone asked her how she was doing. “Still not a fan of things on my feet, but this is better than going around in some medicine cream filled shoes.”

“Now that’s done,” Song sat back and began wiping her hands with a cloth. “There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you since we met, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up...”

There was something anticipatory and nervous in how the healer seemed to approach her question. It was noticeable enough that both firebender and earthbender paused, waiting to see if their ruse had been discovered. Toph and Azula, or “Mei Li” as they were calling her, had politely answered the few questions they were asked during their journey to the clinic, developing a system of signals and non-verbal cues so they didn’t contradict each other, which usually involved putting enough warning pressure on some body part to let them cede the conversation. They were childhood friends, reconnecting after years spent apart with a camping trip, which is how Song came upon them. And, even though they had managed to fabricate a backstory without gainsaying the other, if their deception was threatened, they would have to come up with a coordinated denial, because their true purpose was something they would never admit. 

Song put the cloth aside. “But are you...the Avatar’s earthbending teacher, Toph Beifong?”

“Uh, yeah.” Toph said, realizing as she said it that it was the right move. She could have lied and come up with a convincing story, but Song was a kind hearted person, whose generosity deserved honesty in return. And, just as a matter of practicality, how many other blind, earthbending teenage girls were there wandering around? “That’s me.”

Offering to corroborate, Azula said, “Normally she loves to brag about it, but you caught us at an awkward moment.”

“What’s he like?” Song asked, her eagerness ignoring everything else. The focused precision of a healer and her patient seemed to give way to a barely contained reverence for Song and her newly discovered hero. “You hear so many stories, and some of it sounds too incredible to be true! Did he really mend the rift between the Zhang and Gan Jin tribes by calling forth their ancestors’ spirits and telling them to make up? Did he single handedly wipe out a Fire Nation armada with a sneeze?”

“We took out plenty of Fire Nation forces, but I think it was the regular way. Airbender sneezes tend to wipe him out rather than the other way around. But he’s powerful enough that most of the stories could be true. I’ll say he’s probably the second or third strongest earthbender I know, not as good as me, except maybe sandbending…” Toph said simply, tilting her head to determine if that satisfied Song, then continuing, “But what he’s like as a person? Twinkletoes is a guy who wants to help people. Like, yeah, he’s the Avatar but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Unless he needs to.”

“Twinkletoes?” Song asked.

“My nickname for him. I do that with friends. Aang is Twinkletoes, Katara is Sugar Queen, Zuko is Sparky...”

“Do you have a nickname, Mei Li?” Song asked, belatedly trying to bring her back into their discussion now that her farflung suspicions had been confirmed.

Having inspected all of the clinic’s medicine bottles, Azula opened up their foraging sack, looking for something to feign interest in instead of eavesdropping. “I wasn’t part of their little group when the war was going on.”

“She does,” Toph interrupted. “It’s ‘Princess’ because she never had to do dirty servant work. Probably why we weren’t very successful in gathering food.” 

“We still had food at the campsite, I don’t see the necessity to search for more food on an empty stomach,” Azula retorted, examining their stock. They had been up for hours now and hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. It would be easy to blame their irritability on their hunger and not that they were enemies in a tenuous alliance.

“Hey, Mei Li, Song said she used bacui berries in my medicine. Didn’t we pick some? They’re about this big and round,” she said, holding her fingers a centimeter apart, as wide as the grin she was giving Azula.

Azula, rising to the unspoken challenge, tried to rummage through the sack, gingerly pushing aside the prickle plantains before she pulled her hand out to display a palm’s worth of small red berries. “Do you mean these?”

“Stop!” cried Song. “Those aren’t bacui berries, they’re maka'ole berries!”

“So? What’s the difference?”

“They’re poisonous and can cause sudden blindness!”

Azula froze immediately, her hand opening and letting the berries fall back into the bag.

Toph waved a hand in front of her milky, unfocused eyes. “Really? That sounds terrible. Good thing it doesn’t apply to me!”

Azula cast the earthbender a withering glance. “How did you survive this long?”

“Because I was counting on your helpful guidance, buddy,” Toph replied, leaning over and playfully jabbing the other girl with her elbow. She then started idly wiping the firebender of whatever traces of dirt and berry juice, leaving her hand near the iron braces in case Azula tried to throttle her. 

“It’s still _poisonous_ , you know,” her whisper was as toxic as the berries threatened to be.

“Even after the blindness? Wow, I’m getting a crash course on all sorts of influences that are bad for me.”

“That’s the only side effect, but it’s still very dangerous to eat,” Song continued explaining the diagnosis, her concern making her oblivious to the subtly hostile undercurrent. “I think you were very lucky we crossed paths when we did, between the fire ivy and the maka’ole berries, I don’t think you’d have a pleasant camping experience.”

Azula and Toph exchanged an awareness that the other felt the need to restrain themselves from laughing at how much of an understatement Song was making even without knowing the whole truth.

Toph sighed. “So much for trading our food for your doctoring.”

“It’s really okay, I didn’t do this for payment. But, if you like, I could still use the berries,” Song said, gingerly taking the bag from Azula, who was only too eager to relinquish it. “Sometimes a cure is just a poison fixed in the right manner.”

“Do you happen to have a fix for an empty stomach?” Toph asked, her stomach grumbling again now.

“Maybe it would be a good idea if you came to my home and had a meal there. One,” she tried to stifle a laugh, and it was gentle enough that even though it was directed at them it wasn’t hurtful, “one not from your supplies, I’m sorry to say.”

Azula pulled away from Toph slightly and crossed her now empty arms. “That sounds like a much better alternative. What do you say, Toph?”

Toph, who had still kept her mistrust of Azula as a constant thought in the back of her mind, just as the incessant itching of her feet was a constant reminder for just how important it was to stay on guard, tried to understand why Azula asked her so directly. If she wanted to, she could manipulate Song into insisting on helping them, casting Toph as the recalcitrant friend to her eager to please Mei Li. Perhaps she knew Song would be persuasive enough without the help, or perhaps she was willing to see which inconvenience Toph chose.

She felt more than heard Azula’s stomach give a small rumble of protest, and almost felt sympathy welling up insider her. Maybe this was all some scheme, or perhaps she was also starving and Song’s offer was the easiest guarantee of food.

“If you don’t mind, we’d appreciate it,” Toph said, adding 'not starving' to 'not being ambushed' on the short list of things she and Azula managed to agree upon.


End file.
